1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to notifications and, more particularly, to methods and systems for notifying persons of certain publications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, publications occur frequently and often. As a result, it is difficult to manage and monitor those of the publications that are of interest. Conventionally, key word searches are performed to locate publications of interest. Recently, services have been available to periodically perform searches of publications and notify the requestor of the results (i.e., the matching publications). Such searches are used with trademark searches (i.e., trademark watching), patent searches (i.e., patent watching), or court opinion searches.
Beyond identification of publications through searches, notice of certain publications can have legal ramifications. The notification of others of the existence of these publications is normally performed one-by-one. Often these notifications are letters that are prepared and send by postal or courier mail service or facsimile. Hence, the conventional approaches to notifying others of publications is inefficient and relatively burdensome. Still further, these conventional approaches to providing notifications are often neglected such that no notifications are performed.
Thus, there is a need for improved approaches to notify others of publications.